Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR WILHELM REICH I was amused by Robert Gorham Davis' review of Wilhelm Reich: Selected Writings (NL, December 12). Although Davis grants that the book contains mostly "what looks...
...I carefully and consciously worked to present a wide and relatively fresh variety of different philosophic viewpoints, all bearing on the crisis of the modern world, and all, in highly individual and reflective ways, attempting to take account of it...
...Davis goes on to say that "the involuntary but profoundly expressive gestures which occur at the climax of sexual union are proper not only to man but to the other invertebrates, to worms, to singlecelled creatures, to molecules...
...A. R. Field...
...Dobbs Ferry, N.Y...
...Sharokh Sabavala's continuing reports on the Sino-Indian dispute are usually informative...
...Third, Mr...
...If anything, I deny this and believe rather that the universe is neutral, "moral" and "immoral" pertaining to the ideals, means and actions of men...
...He will find the evidence rather thin that there is any sort of basic pattern in nature that can be linked in any meaningful way with the gestures of the orgasm...
...While I make clear that philosophy does more than enunciate goals and values and makes its high technical demands for which the utmost fidelity to its own craft is imperative, I am certainly unwilling to concede that philosophy and wisdom are unrelated...
...That men who differ on ultimate premises may agree on the sovereign value of freedom and on practical working means to protect and advance it is not to say they form a "unity" on all substantial philosophic points...
...Davis forgot to mention the galaxies...
...Martin Gardner How can the best magazine in the United States, which in the December 12 issue carries such magnificent pieces as the articles by Robert S. Elegant and Reinhold Niebuhr, possibly print such incredible mush as the Davis review of Reich's work...
...The point of my whole chapter on "Reason and Values" is that there is considerable amount of intellectual complication in establishing what is valuable...
...Cohen declares that I might be called "an updated philosophe" who holds "the belief that there is a moral order that pervades the universe...
...Cohen states that I have confused the function of philosophy with wisdom...
...State Department publication 4221 shows that Prime Minister Nehru's sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, while Indian Ambassador to the United States, requested "transfer of certain items of military supplies and equipment" under the provisions of the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949...
...It will not accept them as aid, since the country rejects military assistance from anyone...
...Although Davis grants that the book contains mostly "what looks like quite mad pseudo-science" and that "Reich apparently went progressively insane," he seems to take seriously Reich's startling notion that, as Davis puts it, the "orgasm links man with all living and non-living beings, and this not merely abstractly or by analogy...
...The values and objectives of American foreign policy require a strong independent India...
...Finally, Mr...
...Further, they all share the perspective of philosophy as a reflective activity devoted, in part, to a critique of civilization and thus maintain a tradition opposed to certain current trends in logical analysis and historical materialism...
...Senator John Sherman Cooper and Representative Chester Bowles have both labored mightily as Ambassadors to India and thereafter upon their return to the Congress...
...Cohen entirely misunderstands the purpose of my book when he states that it aims "to draw a. unified philosophic portrait...
...Berkeley, Calif, Adrienne Koch INDIA AND THE U.S...
...Now, if anything is intended by the selections I include, it is patently not "a unified philosophic portrait" nor a "common denominator...
...Washington, D.C...
...John W. Bowling PHILOSOPHY FOR TODAY With all due respect for the sovereign rights of the critic, I am forced to write in protest of certain serious misrepresentations conveyed by Jacob Cohen's review of my book, Philosophy for a Time of Crisis (NL, December 5...
...I honestly read the piece through twice in the belief that he must be kidding Will we next have defense of the flying saucer fanatics, the anti-fluoridation fanatics, or even of Ayn Rand...
...Now I do not wish to belittle the pleasures or significance of the orgasm, but I think that Davis should discuss the topic with some of his colleagues in Columbia University's departments of botany, zoology, physics, chemistry and astronomy...
...If so, then I can only call attention to my second chapter on "The Perspective of Philosophy," in which I show that this usage of the term "philosophy" forces us to discard a considerable and valuable portion of our philosophic tradition from the time of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle down to the recent days of William James, Santayana and Dewey...
...He then criticizes the book on the ground that there is no substantial "common denominator" between the 15 philosophers whose writings I have edited and excerpted...
...Second, Mr...
...Cohen apparently finds novel and disturbing...
...Sabavala states: "One result of this changed view may he that India will be assisted in its search for air-toair missiles...
...But in his recent article, "Border Disputes Plague Nehru Government" (NL, December 5), he has made a basic error in fact...
...In my chapter on "Reason and Values" I deal rather explicitly with and defend reason as an activity of intelligence, continuous with that exhibited in experimental, scientific inquiry — and thus not in any way do I countenance the substitution of historical empathy for reason as the mode of moral discourse...
...The American Government's view of sympathetic concern for the people and Government of India has not depended upon whether a Democratic or Republican Administration was in power in Washington...
...I gladly admit that I am not prepared to lend a hand to this purpose, for I adore the philosophic tradition which gives substantial ground for believing that wisdom has much commerce with philosophy...
...Some identity in much difference is a theme that Mr...
...Therefore, his point, "but history is not philosophy," is entirely irrelevant to the purpose and substance of the book...
...Nor do I subscribe to the other curious view that Mr...
...This substitution is more in the reviewer's fancy than in the objective artifact of my book...
...First, Mr...
...May I call your attention to the fact that the Governments of India and the United States signed a Mutual Defense Assistance agreement which came into force as far back as March 16, 1951...
...He indicates that with a new-American administration about to take office, Washington will view Indian border problems more sympathetically...
...Does Mr...
...Cohen charges that I "substitute historical empathy for reason as the mode of moral discourse...
...Cohen want to imply that philosophy is confined to technical analysis, and that this is and must be exclusive of wisdom...
...Since I was interested primarily in what philosophic men had to say about the human person and free society in an unprecedented era of danger, I was entirely concerned to show the nature of their differing analyses, and the philosophic grounds of my own view of human values...
...Washington, B.C...
...Reich's book, Cosmic Superimposition, covers the astrophysical levels of all this...
...Cohen ascribes to me, that "man can discover values which he may recognize, without intellectual complications...
Vol. 44 • January 1961 • No. 1
